The End of Logic
by Cathartes
Summary: According to Sweets, Bones just needs time to process recent events - but Booth isn't about to let her self-destruct.
1. Prologue

The author does not own any aspect of "Bones" and is making no profit from this work of fan fiction.

_Note: Spoilers up to the end of the third season_

()()()

"That's what I thought. The cell phone's been tapped, Bones," said Booth, dropping it in two pieces on the bed. "Listen to me. You have got to be careful, okay? These guys are serious here. They know how to reach you. They got close enough to do this, they could be anywhere. Don't leave the Jeffersonian. You go to work or you're here, okay?" He paused, kicking the carpet with the toe of his shoe. "Do you want to stay with me? Or I could stay here . . ."

"No," said Brennan. Booth was disappointed to note that she didn't seem particularly touched by his offer. "I think I'm just going to stay in tonight."

Booth hemmed and hawed, but there wasn't a reasonable objection he could think of. She would be safe enough in her own apartment for tonight, and tomorrow he would work out serious protection for her – and fix whatever had gone wrong in their relationship. "Alright," he said finally. "You've got my cell phone number. Anything goes wrong, you call me, okay?"

"Okay."

After he was gone, Brennan walked around the house, unlocking doors, cracking windows. When the apartment was as unsecure as she could make it, she went back to bedroom. She reassembled the phone and turned it on. It lit up. She called Booth's office because she knew he was at home.

It took a long time to go to voicemail. She could have hung up. She stayed on the line.

There were so many terrible people in the world, she thought. _Ring . . . Ring. You've reached the office of Special Agent Seeley Booth. _The kind of people who had hurt Zach, who prayed on the weak, on the helpless. Someone had to do something. _Beep_.

"It's me. Booth, I figured it out. I know who killed those people. First thing tomorrow we can go pick them up and this will all be over . . . just call me. Bye."

Brennan hung up the phone. She walked to the dresser and took out the gun that she kept there, the one that Booth found threatening to his manhood. Then she went to go sit in her living room and wait.


	2. On the Head of a Pin

_**One Week Earlier:** _

Special Agent Seeley Booth was theoretically good at finding people, but he was having no luck finding his own partner. He made a face at the phone in his hand as it went to voice mail for the third time, and hung up without leaving a message.

He left the office and walked out to his car, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. So his pet squint wasn't answering the phone: he'd go talk to her in person.

As he drove the car – ominously silent without Bones' demands to drive or constant flow of scientific chatter – Booth tried to figure out how he could get through to her. He knew she was upset about Zach, but why was she taking it out on him?

When her mother's remains had surfaced, she hadn't shut him out like this: she had turned to him, eaten his Chinese food late at night, talked to him about the case, let him give her a guy hug. She had opened up when her father was on trial, and when she thought her brother was dead. But now she was avoiding him like the plague and he couldn't figure it out.

She wasn't in her lab.

He searched the Jeffersonian with increasing impatience: she was not in Angela's office, not at any of the gleaming metal tables, not in the lounge downstairs, where day-old coffee was fermenting in the pot.

Finally he stopped a guard and inquired.

"Oh, sure, Dr. Brennan," the old man nodded. "Saw her go into the storage room this morning. Never saw her come out."

Success! There she was, frowning into one of the boxes from the shelf. "You know, when someone calls you, it's polite to answer your phone."

"I'm busy, Booth," said Bones patiently, pulling a grotesquely grinning skull out of the box.

"Oh c'mon, with what? With these bones in limbo? No offense, Bones, but I don't think this is really a priority."

"My mother's body was recovered from this room," said Bones, without emotion. "Until everything here is put back into order, someone else's children will be waiting to find their parents."

"Bones." Booth put his hand over hers, stopping her from reaching into the box to extract the scapulae. What could he say to her? "You know, Zach didn't do this to hurt you."

"I know that, Booth. Zach was under the influence of a psychopath. But that doesn't change the fact that these people's families are counting on me to identify these remains." Pulling away from his hand with evident relief, Bones took out the bones and began laying them out neatly on the table.

"You know, Bones, I'm getting the sense that you're mad at me here," said Booth, trying to make her look up at him again, trying to hold her gaze. But she kept her eyes averted to the lab table. "But we have a case, I've been calling you."

"I can send Clark Edison out with you," said Bones distractedly.

"That the new squint?" Booth perked up his ears. When Zach was in Iraq Bones had refused to replace him for months. Had she found a new assistant so quickly?

"He's quite competent. I'll tell him to meet you outside by your car." The dismissal could not have been more obvious, but Booth stood his ground.

"Ah, sorry there Bones but I've got orders straight from Cullen that it's got to be you. There's a mob connection to the case, which is why it got bounced to the FBI and Cullen wants the best."

"Edison is almost as good as I am," said Bones blandly. Booth frowned; it wasn't like her to be modest.

"Well almost isn't good enough," he said, taking her elbow and tugging on it. "So get your coat, c'mon, let's go."

Bones put two of the skeleton's vertebrae, which she had been examining critically, into position, sliding them with the tip of her finger, until they were perfect. "Fine," she said, not sounding the least bit excited.

The half-assembled skeleton seemed to be sneering at him as Booth steered his partner out of the lab. He shuddered.

...

"See, this is great, Bones, you and me, back on the streets!"

She was staring resolutely out the window. "I don't know why you want me to come into the field," she said. "All I'm going to do is tell you to ship the body back to the Jeffersonian."

"Cullen says there's something strange about the skeleton," said Booth, trying to spark her interest in the case. "Maybe you'll be able to tell us something from seeing the site."

"Where was the body found?"

"An empty lot that's known as a local dumping grounds. Probably mob-related."

"Mm-hmm."

"Bones, you think maybe you could look at me when I talk to you?"

"Sorry." Bones brought her eyes up to his and Booth immediately wished she hadn't. She looked straight through him, as if he were an insect on a pin. Just as quickly, her eyes skirted away, back to the window.

"I get it, Bones, I do," said Booth, trying to shake the feeling that he had just been categorized. "Zach was like a son to you."

"Zach and I aren't related, Booth," said Brennan, flatly. "Unless you are suggesting that, by becoming a criminal behind my back, he was in some way similar to the rest of my family."

Booth flinched; Brennan met his gaze with eyes as unrevealing as the surface of a mirror.

"C'mon, Bones, talk to me," said Booth, turning the wheel to guide his SUV into the parking lot behind the crime season. He shut off the car. "What's going on up there?" as he spoke, he tapped on her forehead, and Brennan recoiled as though she'd been struck.

"Hey, woah, easy there!" he exclaimed.

"We should go look at the body right away," she said, ducking quickly out the other side of the car.

...

"So whatcha got?" asked Booth, leaning over her shoulder and peering down into the pit. Usually she hated it when he did this, and would insist that he back up, give her space. Instead she ignored him, staring fixedly at the slender shape of a humerus that was visible through the soil.

"Victim is male, young, maybe 15-20," she recited robotically, reaching with a gloved hand to brush away some of the dirt that obscured the bone. "Healthy at time of death, buried in the past year."

"Man, I hate cases with kids, said Booth, kicking the ground.

"This was an adolescent," Bones corrected automatically.

Bones had cleared away the soil to reveal the rest of the body, which lay contorted, in the supine position.

"You want the remains moved back to the Jeffersonian?"

"Yes, and the soil around him; Hodgins can tell us more about age of the site."

"Can you give me anything more on time of death?"

"Hmm." She considered. "Looking more closely, I'd say it's recent. Last six weeks, at least. The leg is decomposed to the bone as a consequence of exposure, but the rest of the body is largely intact." To demonstrate, Bones cleared the soil around the skeleton's face, and Booth saw that she was right; there was still skin and hair clinging to the remains.

"Shallow grave, decomposition is fairly rapid," said Bones clinically.

"It's going to rain," said Booth, staring up at the sky. "We should probably pack it up."

Bones stepped back to let the techs extract the skeleton. The earth seemed to cling to the remains, reluctant to give them up; then the body came away, the weeds and soil crumbling back. The clothing was still visible in tattered shards; a t-shirt, now grey, heavily stained.

When the remains were lying on a plastic sheet, Bones leaned closer to the body, putting her face horrifically close to the empty chest cavity. She frowned and then squatted back down next to the hole.

"Problems, Bones?"

"My initial guess is that the victim was killed when his neck was broken," said Bones. "But that typically doesn't include a lot of blood. But the stains on his shirt . . . looks like a lot of blood to me."

"So, what exactly are you looking for?"

Bones leaned down to comb through the dirt at the bottom of the hole. "Another body."

Booth squinted doubtfully at the overcast sky. "Better move fast," he warned, but Bones had already found what she was looking for. In the soil beneath the first body, she was uncovering the outline of a small, clenched fist.

When the second body was revealed even Booth could tell that the bones were small and delicate-looking. The figure that they suggested was something barely half-grown.

"Victim is female," said Bones neutrally, "probably between 8 and 10 years old at time of death." The rain started to fall as everyone at the scene scrambled to protect the remains.

"Damnit," said Booth.

...

The Jeffersonian was dark except for the light of Dr. Brennan's office, which was low and soothing. Bones was sitting at her desk in her stockings, having tossed her shoes to the side. She sighed into the phone. "This is Doctor Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian," she said, feeling as though it must be the tenth time she had repeated it. "I'm trying to reach Dr. Anthony Villers. It's regarding Dr. Zachary Addy."

"Please hold," said the voice at the other end of the line. Letting her head drop back against the chair, Bones prepared to start the inquiry all over again.

"This is Dr. Villers," said an unfamiliar voice, abruptly.

Bones felt an unexpected flash of hope. "Tony, this is Temperance Brenan." She knew Dr. Villers, the senior psychologist at Zach's hospital, from a series of forensic conferences.

"Temperance, good to hear from you. I assume this is in reference to Mr. Addy."

"Well, yes it is. I was actually wondering, that is, I was hoping I might be able to schedule a visit with Dr. Addy?"

There was a sigh. "Dr. Brennan, I'm going to talk to you as a colleague," said the voice. "I don't see Mr. Addy being ready for visitors in the foreseeable future."

"Can I ask you – could you tell me something about his status?" This was an inappropriate question; there were issues of confidentiality, she knew, but it was late at night, two professionals talking, and she knew rules could be broken.

"Obviously I can't give you a lot of specifics," said the other man, reluctance evident in his voice. There was a long pause. "But between the two of us, my current diagnosis will be schizophrenia."

"But – excuse me, but that doesn't make any sense," Bones stammered. "Dr. Addy hasn't experienced any of the symptoms, he is perfectly able to distinguish reality from fantasy. . ."

"Well, he's 26 years old," said the psychologist. "Which is within the peak age of onset for men. It wouldn't be surprising to see it only just starting to emerge now. But there are clear signs. His affect is flat, emotionless, and he seems to suffer from a lack of volition - meaning that he doesn't feel that he makes his own decisions, but feels that other people make them for him. He's socially immature. And he's began to experience hallucinations."

"When?" asked Bones sharply. "I've never seen him experience those symptoms."

"They've become rapidly apparent in the past few weeks," replied the other man. "He is rarely able to communicate effectively, and he struggles with everyday tasks, like driving or eating regular meals."

"You don't understand," said Bones. "You're comparing Zach to a normal person, but the truth is that he's not a normal person. He's highly intelligent - he's . . . he's very special."

"Dr. Brennan, that's true of almost all my patients. Now, I've started Zach on antipsychotic medication and we'll see how he adjusts to them within a few weeks."

"And you believe – you believe that this will help him," said Bones.

"There's no way to know, Dr. Brennan," said the doctor gently. "We don't really know what causes schizophrenia."

"You don't even know that schizophrenia exists," Bones shot back. "There's no test for it, no diagnosis, except that you say he has it."

The doctor was used to dealing with people far more argumentative than Dr. Brennan. "Nonetheless, that's my conclusion," he said.

"But – but Dr. Addy is not psychotic," Bones protested. She felt that the more times she used his title, the more that the psychologist would remember who they were talking about. "He was influenced by a terrible man, that's the psychopath, he was traumatized by his time in Iraq, but he's not a psychopath himself!"

"Of course he's not a psychopath," said Doctor Villers consolingly. "But he's still experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia, and until those relent, I cannot allow him to see visitors."

So there it was. "Can I write him a note?"

"I suppose that would be alright. If you address it to me, I'll see that he gets it."

"Thank you. Thank you for speaking with me," said Bones, feeling a familiar headache welling up between her eyes. "And if you could please call me," she added, "call me the moment I can come and visit him – "

"Certainly," said the doctor kindly.

After they had disconnected, Bones took a ball-point pen out of her purse and began to write on a page of notebook paper.

**Zach, don't be afraid, your friends all love you. I will come and visit you as soon as I can. We all care about you and want –**

Here she stopped. What could she write? That they wanted him to get better? That would imply that she believed he was sick. That they wanted him to come home? There was no guarantee that he would ever come home.

**We all care about you and want to help you**.

**Love, Doctor Brennan. **

To others it would probably seem strange sign a note like this, but she knew that Zach always thought of her as Dr. Brennan, so that's how she signed it.

As she closed up her office and walked out to her car, she had to wipe her eyes continuously, or she would not have been able to see where she was going.


	3. Hyper Rational

"I don't want to talk about that," said Bones calmly.

Angela was a little frustrated and more than a little hurt. "But sweetie - "

"Booth, the victims were both under the age of seventeen," said Bones, seeing the FBI agent coming up the stairs. She felt a flash of guilt for using the death of children to avoid a subject, but it was undeniably effective.

"They're so small," said Booth, staring in wonder at the bodies on the table

"On closer inspection I find them closer in age than I originally estimated," Bones confirmed. "The boy was probably about 15 and the girl maybe 10 years old. They were killed within the past six weeks. Cause of death in the younger victim was a single bullethole at the base of the cranium."

"Execution-style," Booth noted. "That supports the mob connection."

"The mob kills children now?" Angela asked.

"In my experience, the organized crime will kill just about anyone."

"I can tell you a little more about the victims," Bones offered. "Cam has done DNA profiles and finds that they were closely related, probably brother and sister. They don't match anybody in missing persons."

"That's because nobody has reported them missing," said Booth grimly. "In these cases it's usually the people closest to the children who are the murderers. Parents, family members."

"That's sick," said Angela.

"It's true," Bones said simultaneously. "It's always the people closest to you that hurt you the most."

...

There was still hours of work to be done in the long-term storage facility: every body would have to be cross-checked after having been compromised. Bones stood in the room that, like the ocean in a storm, had once tossed up her mother's body for discovery.

It was too much: she couldn't face it.

Zack had understood entropy, knew that it was easy to scatter things apart but difficult to put them back together. Well of course he understood it, he was smart. In some ways she had made him smart. She remembered making him lean over the corpse of a child to smell the breath, remembered teaching him not to use the victim's name so that he could remain objective.

Was that how he had brought himself to kill, she wondered? Had he used the detachment she had taught him?

She stopped this thought in its tracks, forcing herself to return to the little bodies on the table. The murder victims, the ones who were calling out for her to help them.

Booth had said that Zack was like her son. It wasn't true, thought Bones, checking for the thousandth time that the tiny parts were all in the right order. Their skin was paper-fine and gone brown with exposure to air, their faces unrecognizable in the gape of death. They were naked but their organs were almost indistinguishable, leaving them innocently sexless, like dolls.

Zack wasn't like a son to her. These were her children right here.

Tenderly, she tucked the fleshless hand of one corpse into the hand of the other. She didn't want them to be lonely.

...

"Agent Booth, good to see you, as always," Dr. Sweets was all smiles, extending his arm to indicate the chair in front of his desk. "I'm afraid Dr. Brennan had to cancel today due to a prior commitment, but that will just give us a chance to talk _mano-a-mano_, if you will."

That's _mano-a-boyo_, Booth corrected, scowling. "And Bones doesn't have a prior engagement, she's just avoiding me."

"Avoiding you? Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that she doesn't take my phone calls, she's never at her desk when I go by the Jeffersonian, she _emails_ me her reports . . " Booth felt like a little kid tattling to the teacher, but he didn't care anymore. "She keeps me at arm's length whenever I see her, and she pretends like, I don't know - like she doesn't even know me anymore!"

"I know it's difficult to see it this way, but it's actually healthy for Dr. Brennan to confront her emotions," said Sweets, with infuriating calm.

"She's not confronting_ them_, she's _avoiding _me!"

"Yes, but in order to do that, it means that on some level, she's acknowledging the fact that she's angry. Maybe it doesn't seem like it to you, but that's actually a good thing."

"Ok, how the hell do you figure that?"

"Dr. Brennan's usual response to emotional stress is denial," said Sweets. "You weren't able to witness her behavior in the wake of your – er – death, but I did, and I can tell you that she pretended that absolutely nothing was wrong."

"Maybe she wasn't pretending," Booth muttered.

"Oh come on, Agent Booth, you know that you are Dr. Brennan have an important relationship," said Sweets. "But when you were 'dead,' Dr. Brennan continued to work as usual. She didn't want to go to your funeral. She depended on logic to manage her feelings."

Booth felt himself smile. That was his little squint.

"Now that Dr. Brennan is relieved of the grief of your death, she's taking the first steps to deal with those feelings. She is angry. That's a good thing, that's healthy." The younger man's broad smile made Booth want to punch him.

"It's not a good thing, she's mad _at me_. She's avoiding me which means we're not working together, and that's technically your job, by the way, to help us work together."

"I think this is going to help you work together in the long run," said Sweets. "But only after Dr. Brennan takes the time to process her emotions and deal with what she's feeling."

"Yeah well, Bones, sometimes she needs someone to tell her how she feels," said Booth. "That's what I do for her – I put her feelings into words, you know? So she knows what she's feeling."

"Well," said Sweets, "maybe this is Dr. Brennan's chance to figure out how she feels for herself."

...

Sweets, Booth decided, was full of crap. He'd never waited for an invitation before, and he certainly wasn't going to do it now.

He pulled into the Jeffersonian just in time to see a familiar car taking a left-turn out of the lot. Where was Bones going in the middle of the day? She was supposed to be hard at work deep into the night, until she finally fell asleep on the couch in her office or maybe leaning on the lab tables.

Zack used to bring her coffee when she slept in the office, he recalled. Who would bring it to her now?

Was she going home early? Was she sick? He frowned when she turned right at the light. Her apartment was in the other direction. Her car was rapidly disappearing from sight.

Before he could think too much about it, he pulled out of the lot and began to tail her.

...

Luckily for Bones there was a young, bored nurse at the desk; when she introduced herself as Doctor Temperance Brennan, dropped the right names, and flashed her badge, she was pointed in the direction of the cafeteria without an inquiry as to what, exactly, she was a doctor of. So much for security.

Zach was sitting at one of the long plastic tables, immediately distinguishable from the other patients by his tidy clothes, orderly demeanor, and relative silence. Bones slid into the seat across from him and for a moment they just looked as each other, as Zach slowly ate bites of cereal, one after another.

They were both quiet.

"It's good to see you," said Bones finally.

Zack didn't answer.

"He does a lot better when you're here," observed an unfamiliar voice; Bones looked over her shoulder and found the lunchroom attendant, a stout woman dressed in khaki. "We've had trouble getting him to eat, but he's doing good job now."

Zack continued to lift the spoon slowly to his mouth.

"Would it be alright if I spoke to him alone?" Bones asked politely. She had learned that it paid to be respectful to nurses, as they wielded a surprising amount of power.

Over the woman's shoulder, she saw Agent Booth stride into the lunchroom, obviously unhappy.

The woman looked doubtful. "I'll stand over here, but only for a moment," she warned.

He had seen her as well. "Bones!"

She ignored him, leaning across the table and speaking quickly. "Zack, you can't let them win," she whispered in his ear. "Don't you understand, you have to be better than this. You can't let them make you feel defective. Okay? You're so smart, you can do anything. Don't let them beat you."

Zack kept eating slowly, lifting his spoon again and again.

"Zack, please. You're not too smart, okay? You're one of us. You're just like us. And you can be a genius and still be yourself, and still be a good person, okay?"

"Bones," said Booth, coming to stand beside her. Up close he seemed more puzzled than angry. "Bones, you know you're not supposed to be here."

"I know you can do it, Zack, I believe in you. I believe in you, okay?"

Booth could not stand by and watch her suffer any more. Screw Sweets, screw processing emotions, Booth was not going to stand there while Bones cried in the middle of a lunch hall in a mental institution.

"Bones, let's get some air," he said, tugging gently on her arm. She leaned over Zack and kissed his forehead, stroking the hair back from his face as Booth pulled her away.

"I'll be back to see you soon," she promised Zack over his shoulder. He continued to eat as he watched her leave, slow tears rolling down his cheek.

...

Boots tucked Brennan under his arm and steered her out the front door, earning a few surprised stares from staff members as they passed. She didn't resist him and she didn't lean into his body, either; she just went where she was directed.

He rushed her out of the tinted doors and into the sunlight, where he paused long enough to slide on his sunglasses. Then he bundled her into the car and started the engine.

"Okay, Temperance," he said when they were safely away from the aslyum. "Talk to me."

"Do you remember what Dr. Sweets said about me during my father's trial?" asked Brennan absently. "He said that I'm 'hyper-rational.' Which, by the way, is not a real clinical term as far as I can tell. And he said that the danger of a totally rational human being is that they could rationalize anything, even murder."

"Yeah, so, Sweets is an idiot. We know this."

"Well, he had a point. Right diagnosis, wrong forensic anthropologist."

"I don't get it Bones, where are you going with this?"

"I don't think of Zack like my son," she said. "I don't think of him like my little brother. He's me."

Booth bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. "You are not Zack."

Brennan laughed mirthlessly. "Of course I am," she said. "Just a brain in a jar. Zack and I – we don't get people, everybody fools us. We never catch on. Every murderer, every scumbag, every politician" – she could not quite keep the bitterness out of her voice – "everyone uses us for something."

"Bones . . . "

"Don't you see – "

"No, listen to me, Bones. You're not him. You're nothing like him. Do you hear me? You are not like that. I know you, Bones. I _know you_."

"I don't know anything anymore," said Bones, leaning her head against the cold glass of the window. "I want to go home, Booth."

Booth had the sense that the moment to talk to her had passed, and he was helpless to bring it back. She was avoiding his eyes again, rubbing her forehead as if she had a headache. He saw that her eyes were puffy and red, and a wave of tenderness washed over him for her. He just couldn't push her any further today.

"Okay," he said, wearily, "I'll take you home."

They didn't speak again the whole way.


	4. Turning to Dust

Booth pressed a hand to his forehead and groaned in frustration. Four days of interviewing, with Bones tagging faithfully behind, and no leads. He glared at the pie on his plate as though it was somehow responsible for his lack of success.

The sound of Bones' cell phone going off in her bag brought his attention back to the forensic anthropologist sitting across from him. She had been quiet all week, back to her evasive act – if you asked her, she'd say nothing was wrong. It was driving him nuts.

"Brennan. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Silicate particulates, got it. Yeah, I'll tell Booth."

"Good news?" he asked hopefully.

"Not very conclusive, I'm afraid. Hodgins thinks the bodies were transported in a late-model Ford, based on the carpet fibers found on the clothing."

"That's not particularly helpful," said Booth, discouraged.

"I should get back to the lab, maybe there's more I can find," said Bones. "I could work up a profile of where they lived based on the composition of their bones."

"Fine, do it. I'll drop you off. And then go home, okay? You've been working triple over-time on this case, plus the bones in limbo."

"There's a lot to do," said Bones neutrally, but her eyes looked swollen, as though she hadn't been getting a lot of sleep. Booth sighed. He was familiar with the condition.

"I'm gonna make a call to Organized Crime, see if they can give us an inside guy to talk to."

"And then you're going to go home, too right?" asked Bones skeptically.

"You bet." Booth offered his 'charm smile,' but as he had noticed recently, Bones was immune.

They left the diner, Booth realizing too late that he had not even tried to tempt her into trying a bite of the pie.

...

"Look, I don't even know what you're talking about, okay!"

"I'd guess I'm talking about the conviction that ends your parole," said Booth, holding up a bag full of white powder. He had collared an informant that had been referred to him by the Organized Crime Division of the FBI, and he wasn't about to let him go without getting some useful information.

"Listen, man, I could get killed just for talking to you," the twitchy man complained, tugging on his too-tight collar as he tried to avoid Booth's well-honed interrogation stare.

"Or you could get off on what seems like a pretty slam-dunk drug conviction," Booth suggested, holding the evidence he'd lifted from the informant's car. "What do you think of that option?"

"Fine, man, fine. All I've heard is, there's some people, say, in the market of pharmaceuticals, for example, that might be paying a lot of attention to your investigation. Like, an unusual amount of attention."

"So what are you saying, that this is connected to a drug ring?" asked Booth skeptically. "The murder of two children?"

"I'm just telling you what I hear on the street," muttered the snitch.

"I don't need a rumor, my friend, I need a _name_." Booth shook the baggie in a silent threat.

"These guys have ears everywhere," the snitch insisted; "you think they don't know what they're doing? You think they won't know if you talk to me?'

"I'm FBI, I think you're pretty safe," said Booth.

"No way."

Booth rolled his eyes. "I promise, just between the two of us."

"Yeah, until you make a phone call."

"What? What did you say?"

"Nothing, I didn't say anything! I can't tell you anything more than I already have, seriously."

"I need a name," Booth insisted. "Just give me a name."

When the other man offered him one, Booth cursed viciously and sprinted back to the car.

...

Bones had been trying to write the last few chapters of her new book, in which Kathy and Andy caught the murderer and indulged in the inevitable sexual gratification demanded by her readers (this time, set in a kitchen) but instead she found herself writing paragraphs about Kathy after Andy's death:

_Once Andy was gone, Kathy stopped seeing color. Food didn't taste good anymore. She became tone-deaf and music on the radio sounded off-key. She developed a rash and wondered if it was an allergy to sunlight. She couldn't shake an unnatural fixation on her fingernails. When people asked how she was feeling, Kathy didn't know what to say. She didn't feel anything at all: not happy, not sad. Just blank. When Kathy tried to look at human remains, she saw, not Andy, but herself as a skeleton on the table. Brittle and dry, fleshless, turning slowly to dust._

These chapters were hideous. Nobody wanted to read something depressing like that; fiction was supposed to be about escape, about diversion. And Andy wasn't supposed to die anyway - they solved the case and moved on, just like any other time.

Bones deleted these paragraphs as soon as she wrote them. She had started dodging her agent's calls, waiting for the inspiration to write the chapter that she needed.

Luckily, a knock on the door distracted her from the blank page on her computer screen. She could see Booth's face through the peephole, and he didn't look pleased.

...

"_That's what I thought. The cell phone's been tapped, Bones," said Booth, dropping it in two pieces on the bed. _

He was still contemplating his options as he guided his car through the downtown traffic, heading back towards his apartment. How had they gotten close enough to the Jeffersonian – close enough to him – to get bug Bones' cell phone?

The easiest way to tap a phone was to switch it – wire an identical model and then switch the SIM card. It wasn't hard if the phone in question was fairly new (most people wouldn't be able to tell one phone from the other) but Bones' phone was three years old.

How many people in DC were buying an outdated phone these days?

"Well, you could do a computer search," said Booth to himself. "Or just give it up for tonight, and get some sleep."

He was tired; he should go home. But that would put them another step behind these creeps, who murdered little children, who haunted his partner's dreams. With a sigh, he steered his SUV into a U-turn and headed back to the office.

The red blinking light of his answering machine greeted him when he got there.

_..._

_Pots and pans clattered in the sink as Kathy pushed herself suddenly up against him, tugging his head down impatiently so she could reach his mouth, reach that smirk that taunted her all week long. Finally she would wipe it off of his face, preferably with her tongue. He let out a quiet _oof _of surprise as his back hit the countertop, his arms coming up automatically to her waist._ Kathy, maybe we should talk about this _he started to say, but she was tired of talking, tired of waiting, her hands were shaking, she wanted a drink, she wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted him, needed him, couldn't think about anything else. _Finally, _she thought -_ _it was the word that was pulsing in her head, steady as a beat. _Finally.

...

Booth was cursing under his breath as he took the stairs three at a time. Stupid Bones, stupid mobsters, stupid Booth. How could he have missed that particular, mulish look that she got when she was plotting something? He was supposed to know her better than that. Who the hell else was going to protect her from herself?

He heard the distant popping of gunfire before he got halfway up the stairs, and suddenly he was sprinting, holding his breath and praying that he would get there in time, that he would not be too late. He had gotten her before his so-called partner had fed her to the dogs, gotten to her before she had run out of oxygen in a buried car. Please God, let him get there on time again. Just one more time, just this time, and he would never ask for anything again.

()()()()()

_Well, dear readers, the next (final) chapter involves violence, death, and a scene between our two main characters in a kitchen. _


	5. Deo gratis

()()()

_He heard the distant popping of gunfire before he got halfway up the stairs, and suddenly he was sprinting, holding his breath and praying that he would get there in time, that he would not be too late. He had gotten to her before his so-called partner had fed her to the dogs, gotten to her before she had run out of oxygen in a buried car. Please God, let him get there on time again. Just one more time, just this time, and he would never ask for anything again._

()()()

It had gone ominously silent by the time that Booth got to the top of the stairs. He could only hear his own ragged breathing as he turned the corner and found the door to the apartment standing wide open – he burst inside with his gun already drawn, not even caring that, for all he knew, he might be walking into a hail of bullets.

It was dark inside. Nothing seemed disturbed – the familiar red walls, the bizarre artifacts, her orderly collections of books and music. It smelled like her.

His heart sized when he saw the dark form of a body on the floor, sprawled half-in and half-out of the kitchen. When he got closer it was obvious that the figure was one of a man. Booth stepped over him indifferently: _Not Bones, keep moving_.

In the gloom of the apartment each corner seemed menacing, but Booth moved silently through the hallway, desperately scanning the empty rooms.

Suddenly he heard people talking in the next room: weak-kneed with relief, he recognized her voice, sounding perfectly calm and reasonable, as if she were having a conversation with Angela in the lab. He rounded the corner with his gun drawn.

"Why don't you just tell me the truth? Then I wouldn't have to do this."

"Bones," he choked out, his heart swelling with a thousand emotions; relief, affection, anger, frustration.

She was standing in perfect firing stance, feet shoulder-width apart, both arms extended and steady, holding the gun level on the figure of a man crouching on the floor.

"Booth," she acknowledged. Her face, her eyes, were perfectly flat, perfectly absent of emotion.

"Well hiya, there, Bones," he said cautiously, inching towards her. "I'm just going to come over there, okay?"

"You don't have to talk to me like that," she said, frowning. "Don't use that voice on me."

"What voice?" He kept inching closer and closer, almost within an arms' reach, almost close enough to touch her.

"The one you use on hysterical women and psychopaths. And small woodland creatures. I'm not irrational, Booth. I feel perfectly fine."

"Yeah, I can see that, Bones." Finally he was close enough to touch her, but she kept the gun pointed unswervingly at her target. Booth could smell the acrid scent of urine and knew that the man had pissed himself. "Whatcha doin' here?"

"He came to kill me," said Bones. "He came into my house. Do you know the laws protecting a citizen's right to self-defense?" He realized a half-step later that she was aiming this last question not at him, but at the man on the floor. "They're quite permissive in the case of a private citizen in their own home."

"Yeah, that's true," said Booth encouragingly. Inching closer.

"That means I could shoot you and get away with it," explained Bones in her teaching voice, the one that usually described parts of the skeleton or the particular nature of a certain break. Booth shuddered to hear it applied here. "Just like I did with your friend back there. Unless you tell me what I want to know."

"Bones," said Booth.

"Tell me!" Her voice was as sharp as a lash; both men flinched. "Who are those children?" _Are_, Booth noted, not _Were_.

"They belonged to my bosses' girlfriend," the man answered at last, the whites of his eyes visible when they rolled in anxiety.

"Who's your boss?" Her voice was empty.

"Tony Masetti. His old man's the head of the Masetti family."

"Bones, you know we can't use any of this in court when you got the confession _at the point of a gun_!" Booth hissed.

"Be quiet, Booth. I just want to hear," said Bones, her voice still terribly absent. "Why did your boss kill those kids? Why did nobody report them missing?"

"All I know is, they musta had a fight," said the thug. "He killed the woman and then the kids so they wouldn't tell."

"We didn't find a woman," said Booth at once.

"She's buried in the lot across the street," the man muttered. "We had to make two trips. He called me in the middle of the night, told me to come help him get rid of the bodies. I don't ask questions, I just do what I'm told."

"That lot is public property," said Booth. "We can dig without probable cause. We could find the mother, and put this guy away." He was considering his chances if he reached to take the gun from Bone's grasp. She wouldn't shoot him, right? "We can make a case, Bones."

She didn't seem to be listening. "We should just shoot him," she said calmly.

"No, no Temperance. You don't want to do that, believe me."

"He came to kill me. He helped to cover up what his boss did to those kids. Somebody has to stop these people, Booth."

"Please, man, you gotta help me out, she's nuts," begged the man on the floor. "I promise, I'll say whatever you want me to say, but please – "

"Bones," whispered Booth. "Look at me."

"Would you report me?" she asked. "What if I said he attacked me and I had to shoot him, would you rap me out?"

"That's rat, Bones. Rat you out." Very slowly, Booth reached out his hand, giving her lots of time to react. His fingers found hers, wrapped around the pommel in her hands. Slowly, he guided the gun down to point at the carpet. "No, Bones, I wouldn't rat you out." He pulled the gun away from her suddenly limp hands, reaching past her to set it on the table. Then he kept his arm encircling her body protectively, lowering his head to whisper in her ear. "I would never tell."

She smelled so familiar, so clean and pure. He brushed his face over her hair, inhaling. "Are you okay?"

"I'm not hurt, Booth, it's only a flesh wound. What are we going to do about him?"

"Okay," said Booth, very calmly. "Where were you hit?"

He met her eyes and then followed her gaze to her shoulder, which he realized for the first time was sticky-looking and wet; the blood was almost invisible on her black jacket, but he could see that her sleeve was soaked.

"You," he motioned to the crouching man. "Up against that wall." The man did as he was told.

"Alright, let's have a look at this, hmm, Bones?" He peeled her jacket off of her shoulder and slid it down her arm, trying to fight his reaction to her white shirt which was torn and bloody. The wound was broad and shallow, still bleeding sluggishly, and he could see the burn of gunpowder around the edges.

"Let's try to get this to stop bleeding, okay?"

"Booth, we don't have time for this. We have to call the police."

"I think we have time to stop the bloodloss here, Bones."

"We are going to have to account for this time in court," said Bones. "The prosecutor will be able to establish a timeline. They'll ask why you didn't call the police for fifteen minutes after shots were fired." Her voice was clinical, detached.

"Oh yeah, you haven't thought too much about this," Booth groaned. Nonetheless, he guided her hand to press against the wound and flipped out his cell phone, dialing a few numbers. He kept her tucked against his chest as he spoke quickly into the phone.

His voice seemed to fade in and out to Bones, who was mentally replaying the scene in her apartment: the first man bursting in, the muzzle fire of his gun, and the way he fell so heavily when she shot him back, killing him before he got off another shot. The second man windmilling backwards away from the point of her gun, and then the feeling of calm that had settled over her, letting her do what she had to do. _Officer involved_, Booth was saying. _One suspect DOA_.

"They'll be here soon," he told her, hanging up. "Just hang in there, okay?"

...

There were so many people touching her, talking to her, and their voices were so loud. She was having trouble concentrating on what they were saying. They wanted her to go somewhere? Bones didn't want to go anywhere. She didn't want to be standing in her undershirt with people poking at her aching shoulder. She wanted it to be nice and quiet, so she could think. She was still trying to figure out if the crack of gunfire she was hearing was an after-effect of the noise, or if she was imagining it.

It seemed to take a long time before the hallway was roped off, before the suspect was arrested, before the medical examiner and the lead investigator were satisfied with their story. Bones was pretty sure that Booth was smoothing the way for her, as he usually did; she had the feeling that the ordeal would have been a lot more drawn-out without his oversight, but the presence of an FBI agent (and the fact that he had called in his own colleagues) seemed to speed up the process.

"They broke into my apartment," she repeated, what seemed like a hundred times. "He came around the corner here, the first man, and he fired as soon as he saw me, but I fired back two rounds, and he fell."

"Why were you armed?"

"Booth told me they had tapped my phone," she whispered. "He told me to be careful."

Somehow, it seemed like they believed her. Maybe she looked more shaken up and vulnerable than she felt.

"Ma'am, can you try to stand up?" said the EMT, when he was finished wrapping the wound. "We'll get you downstairs into the van."

"Booth, I don't want to have to go to the hospital," she said in a low voice. He was immediately next to her.

"I don't know Bones, it looks pretty bad," he said doubtfully.

"Please, Booth." She sniffed. "Please."

"Okay, just relax, alright? Let's see how you do tonight, and maybe in the morning we'll go to a doctor."

"Sir, I can't let her refuse further medical treatment unless someone is going to stay with her," said the EMT, whose nametag announced that his name was Dave.

"It's not that serious," Bones protested immediately.

"That's my medical opinion," said Dave firmly.

Booth took one lok at Bones' pleading, somewhat vacant face and knew what he had to do.

"Yeah, listen, Dave, if she doesn't want to go, I've, ah, got this," he said uncomfortably. "I'll look out for her." There was a word for this, he knew - _whipped_.

"It's your decision," said the EMT skeptically.

"Yeah, it is. Thanks for your help," said Booth. As people started to filter out of the apartment, he tugged Bones into his arms, standing with her in the kitchen as they watched the body rattle out the door on a gurney. It could have been her.

"Thank you for speaking up for me with the EMTs, Booth," said Bones, when they were finally alone. "I can take my own car to a hotel for tonight." She made as though to pull away from him, but drew her insistently back.

"Oh no," said Booth firmly. "I said I would look out for you. You don't want me to break my word, do you? If you don't go to the hospital than you have to be under the care of Doctor Booth."

"You're not a doctor," Brennan corrected him predictably. "You're a Special Agent."

"Bones, shh." He began to rub her back, feeling the tightness of her muscles under his hands. "You can stay at my place tonight, okay?"

"I don't want to be an inconvenience to you . . . "

"Way, way too late," Booth teased her gently, while he desperately rubbed and rubbed until he felt her begin to relax. She turned her face into his neck and he took a minute to enjoy the feeling of her fluttering eyelashes against his pulse point. "Okay, we gotta get this show on the road," he said. "C'mon."

He took her wrist and kept her with him as he moved about the apartment, packing up. He wanted to feel that she was right there next to him, that she was alive, that he hadn't been too late. _Deo Gratis_. She moved behind him like a sleepwalker, not resisting at all. He was completely unashamed to rummage in her drawer for panties, selecting two cotton pairs, white and beige. He found an oversized t-shirt for her to sleep in. He selected shoes that matched her work clothes, which he took out of her closet; a conservative jacket, blouse, and comfortable pants. He didn't forget to stop in the bathroom and pick up her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a comb.

"Am I forgetting anything?"

"My laptop," said Bones.

"You're not working tonight," he warned, but he grabbed it anyway from the living room table, still tugging her behind him. He had dropped her wrist and instead, tucked her hand into his, entwining their fingers.

"Okay, we'll leave your car here, I'm parked in the street," he announced with satisfaction. He hustled her down the stairs and out into the night, making her keep up.

The drive to his apartment was quiet, as Booth fussed with the temperature controls. "Are you hot? Cold?"

Bones shook her head no.

Finally the car was parked, they had crossed the parking lot, they were in his bedroom.

"Okay, into bed with you," he ordered.

"I'm not tired."

"You're dead on your feet," he said, and flinched. Bad choice of words. "Look, just humor me, okay? I'm on the hook if you end up hurting your shoulder."

She sighed and relented. "Fine."

Her toothbrush was already loaded with toothpaste and sitting on the bathroom sink. Her pajamas were laid out for her on the bed.

She finally spoke when he turned his back to let her undress. "Why aren't you mad at me," she wanted to know.

"For what exactly?"

"I lied to you. I killed a man. I nearly shot another in cold blood."

"You wouldn't have done it, Bones," said Booth with complete confidence. "As for the rest of it, well, I'm furious that you put yourself in danger, of course. Don't ever do anything like that again." His voice held just the hint of a threat. "But, you know – I guess I'm so happy you're alive, I'll give you a pass on anything else that happened tonight."

"You forgive me - just like that?" Her voice was suspicious.

He scratched the back of his head. "Well sure, Bones, that's what people do." _When they love somebody_.

He had forgotten that she had never scared her parents by missing curfew, only to find that their anger was washed away in their relief to have her home. Maybe nobody had ever waited up for her before. His chest felt tight.

He turned around and found her looking at him, impossibly tiny in a shirt that hit her at mid-thigh. "C'mon, Bones, get in the bed," he repeated, pushing down her shoulders to make her sit.

"Booth, I – "

"Ah-ah. Sleep now, talk later." He pulled back the blankets and waited for her to scoot down under the sheets before he drew them back up. "Just go to sleep Bones. We'll figure everything out in the morning, okay?"

Bones felt her eyes filling up with tears. She would have to stop torturing him, she realized, about his role in her agony during the two weeks he was dead. She would have to forgive him, because that's what people do when they love each other.

"Hey, no crying," said Booth gently, his heart twisting to see her unhappy. "We got the guy, okay? Everything's fine."

"It's not that, Booth," said Bones. "It's you being dead and Zack being – what he is, and I guess I just thought, if we found out what happened to those kids, maybe it would go away – but here we are, and everything is still – it's still . . ."

"Bones," said Booth, tugging her back up to a sitting position so he could wrap his arms around her. "Is that why you concocted this crazy scheme," he asked, "luring those guys to your apartment?"

"I guess it didn't matter what happened to me, if I couldn't make things the way they were before," said Bones, pulling a little out of his grasp, her voice watery.

"Jesus, Bones," said Booth, not wanting to think about what she was confessing to. "Do you have any idea how scared I was?"

"Yeah, I think I have some idea," she muttered. Then she peered up at him. "Do you need a guy hug?"

"Yeah, I think I could use one of those." Hesitantly, but with a certain amount of determination, she leaned forward and put her arms around him. When he was tucked in against her body, one of her hands came to rest at the back of his head, stroking the short hairs at his neck.

"Bones, things aren't going to be the way they were," said Booth with his eyes closed, letting his head rest on her shoulder. Warm, breathing, living shoulder.

"I know."

"But you know what? You've got me, and Angela, and Hodgins, and Zack – we haven't gone away, Bones. We all love you and want to help you."

There it was, thought Bones, the same words she had written to Zack. She guessed that was what people could say to each other, when there were no words left to offer.

"Booth," she said, "I'm sorry."

"I know." He let her lay back down. "Listen, Bones, tomorrow morning we'll have another case, and another after that, and probably a hundred more."

She closed her eyes and let the sound of his voice wash over her.

"We'll do what we always do, okay? We'll stop bad guys, we'll figure out crimes."

"Mm-hm."

"Just don't shut me out, Bones," he whispered, his voice suddenly close to her ear. "Don't you disappear on me."

She was so tired . . . it was impossible to keep her eyes open. "Mm," she murmured, her voice gravelly and rough. "Only - if you - promise me . . . the same thing."

Booth nuzzled his nose briefly in her hair, and for a second she thought that she felt his lips on her temple. "I promise," he whispered, right in the last second before she felt herself drifting off to sleep.

Tomorrow, she thought, they would start again.

**FINIS**

()()()

_Of course the show barely deals with any of the issues from last season, and at least now I feel satisfied with their resolution - _

_Thank you to everyone who read and responded!_


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